Ancient city of Troy rebranded itself after war

New Scientist ^ | Tuesday, December 18, 2012 | derived from Journal of Archaeological Sciences

[SunkenCiv]

Even ancient cities knew about rebranding. Troy was destroyed by war about 3200 years ago -- an event that may have inspired Homer to write the Iliad, 400 years later. But the famous city rose again, reinventing itself to fit a new political landscape.

Troy lies in north-west Turkey and has been studied for decades. Pottery made before the war has a distinct Trojan style but after the war its style is typical of the Balkans. This led archaeologists to believe that the locals had been forced out and replaced by populations from overseas.

But when Peter Grave at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, and his colleagues examined the chemical make-up of the pottery, they realised that both pre and post-war objects contained clay from exactly the same local sources, suggesting the same people were making the pots.

"There is substantial evidence for cultural continuity," says Grave. So if the Trojans never left the city, why did their pottery style change?

Before the sack of Troy, the city looked east towards the powerful Hittite Empire. But this political powerhouse collapsed around the time that Troy was destroyed. Grave says the post-war pottery is Balkan in style because the Trojans were keen to align themselves with the people there, who had become the new political elite in the region.

[SunkenCiv]

[SunkenCiv]

The Dark Age of Greece
by Immanuel Velikovsky
Chapter I: The Homeric Question
The Allies of Priam
http://www.varchive.org/dag/trowar.htm

[SunkenCiv]

One of *those* topics.

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[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
I hope this hadn't been posted, I'm like you, I can't get pages to load in entire. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[BenLurkin]

Very cool!

Reading a history of the excavations at Troy as a boy led to my majoring in Atgnhropology undergrad.

Thought for sure I would unearth an ancient city some day...oh well...

[SunkenCiv]

One of *those* topics.

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[SunkenCiv]

You’re lucky, my university didn’t even *offer* Atgnhropology, and I was dying to major in it. ;’)

[carriage_hill]

You’re lucky. My university didn’t even have that one in the catalog, or I’d have majored in it, too. Heh.

Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year!

[BenLurkin]

The night is young.

My spelling is likely to get progressively worse.

I'm still disappointed the world didn't end on Friday.

[yarddog]

My university didn’t offer anthropology either and it was Troy University.

We did have a classics dept for a time, in fact Dr. Agnew was the smartest prof I ever had.

One time he showed the “Geography Club” of which I was a member, slides of Greece, Asia Minor, Crete etc. He had visited just about every place in the classic world.

[muawiyah]

We have an archaeological site somewhere around here ~ nobody's saying ~ that amounts to an ancient American Indian pottery barn and kiln ~ the estimates are that 20,000 people regularly lived in the immediate vicinity, so it was a major North American feature.

They made pottery according to a traditional design that ended up all over the East Coast and Midwest. Some time in the mid 1500s they swapped out the old designs and began making European style pottery!

All indications are the two types were made by the same folks from the same matrials ~ only the market had changed.

Like to note this operation was still running hot well into the 1600s ~ and in head to head competition with Jamestown.

It's not at all surprising the Trojans did the same thing.

[Democrat_media]

I’m still disappointed the world didn’t end on Friday

explanation?

[Argus]

Bump for tablet.

[Bratch]

[bunkerhill7]

Dutch did the same thing with Chinese blue.

[Red_Devil 232]

they realised that both pre and post-war objects contained clay from exactly the same local sources, suggesting the same people were making the pots. Why would they conclude that if the same source of clay was used that it was the same people (tribe) using the clay source to make pottery?

[bigheadfred]

Nice dig. LOL

[yarddog]

The Romans believed they were descendants of the Trojans who escaped the destruction of Troy. Under Aeneas they traveled to Rome and were the seeds of the Roman Empire.

Does anyone know if there was even a shred of evidence to support that idea?

[BenLurkin]

Just Virgl IIRC

[null and void]

I'm still disappointed the world didn't end on Friday.

Me too, I put off Christmas shopping just in case...

[GeronL]

Was it “compassionate conservatism”?

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, that’s an excellent point — there’s nothing in this article to justify that conclusion.

[SunkenCiv]

The Aeneid was commissioned as a work of political propaganda, an origin myth superimposed on the native origin myth of the twin brothers, Romulus and Remus. My guess is that the Etruscan origins in the eastern Med, like so many other things, seeped into Roman society and were adopted as Roman. IOW, there’s no truth to it per se.

http://www.varchive.org/nldag/carthage.htm

[gleeaikin]

Here is an interesting video about a Mayan cave for your GGG ping list. At least I think it’s interesting my audio doesn’t work, going to force my sweetheart to play it for a Christmas present.

http://www.aol.com/video/ancient-aliens-mayan-underground/517570315/?ncid=webmail6

[chesley]

Seems thin to me, with minimal evidence.

Why shouldn't the new population use the exact same sources of clay? It's not like THEY were forced out, and the workings should be easy to spot.

Great leaps of logic with small propulsion from facts is the hallmark of all the social sciences, although I do love archaelogy and anthropology

[Yollopoliuhqui]

Whatever you do, don’t read “Where Troy Once Stood” by Iman Wilkens and “The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales” by Felice Vinci, both available on Amazon.

[SunkenCiv]

There is or was a set of pages by Edo Nyland which explored something similar, attributing the Odyssey to preRoman British sources, with the islands of Scotland the setting. But whatever you do, don't read "The Authoress of the Odyssey" by Samuel Butler. :')

The Trojan War keyword to now:

• Recent Finds Prove That Homer's Stories Were More Than Myth
• Was Troy a Metropolis? Homer Isn't Talking
• Geologists Show Homer Got It Right
• Geologists investigate Trojan battlefield
• Victor Davis Hanson: The Ancient Greeks -- Were they like us at all?
• Troy the Movie
• Was There a Trojan War?
• Amazon Warrior Women
• Arzawa
• In Search of the Real Troy
• Russian Culture Official Suggests Legendary Gold Collection From Troy Unlikely be Returned Germany
• Archeologists make historic discovery (Tomb of Odysseus)
• Search Locates Homer's Ithaca
• Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore
• Palace Of Homer's Hero Rises Out Of Myths
• Odyssey's End? The Search for Ancient Ithaca
• Virgil's Demi-God City 'Found'
• Archaeologists Seek Hints On 4,000-Year-Old (Thracian) Civilization In Tekirdag
• Schliemann's search for the 'first city'
• Drill hole begins Homeric quest
• Lessons Of 'The 300'
• Classical Treasures, Bathed in a New Light [ Met Museum, NYC, Roman and Greek classics ]
• Mycenaean and Hittite Diplomatic Correspondence: Fact and Fiction [ PDF file ]
• 2,700-Year-Old Fabric Found in Greece
• Troy Story [The Straight Dope]
• Sick Rams Used As Ancient Bioweapons
• Defences at Troy reveal larger town [ news finally reaches UK ]
• 'The Odyssey' and 'The Iliad' are giving up new secrets about the ancient world
• Trojan arrows and unique seals from Perperikon stand out in archaeological summer '08
• Archaeology meets mythology in Mycenean Pylos (King Nestor)
• Archaeologists find suspected Trojan war-era couple
• 5,000-year-old Venus figure found in Canakkale
• Could museum's gold be from ancient Troy?
• Diggers discover Phoenician army complex in Cyprus [ Trojan War connection ]
• Ancient Chronography, Eratosthenes and the Dating of the Fall of Troy [abstract]
• Has the Sarcophagus of Paris, Prince of Troy, Been Found?
• Ancient Greek town from where ships were launched for Troy unearthed
• Greek Archaeologists Claim They Discovered Odysseus' Palace
• Project Troia -- Bronze Age Troy Just Keeps on Growing
• The War that Killed Achilles by Caroline Alexander [reviews]
• Bulgarian Archaeology Finds Said to Rewrite History of Black Sea Sailing
• Lost city found in Turkey: It is older than Troy
• Rare Cuneiform Script Found on Island of Malta

[SunkenCiv]

I don’t have that Babylon-5 hairdo sufficient to go view that one.